The man behind plans to turn Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis’s home into a museum insists it will celebrate his life and work - and will not be a ‘monument to suicide’.

Lifelong fan of the band, businessman and musician Hadar Goldman, moved to secure the terraced home in Macclesfield after he heard fans were bidding to try and buy it.

He had to instruct lawyers and spent £190,000, nearly double its asking price, to reverse a sale that was already going through.

The M.E.N. was granted exclusive access to 77 Barton Street as he looked around the property for the first time.

He outlined his ambitious plans to make it the centrepiece of a tribute to the band he dubbed ‘the Beethoven of modern music’.

The first stage will be to have a blue plaque erected outside before it is transformed into a mecca for post-punk heroes.

Mr Goldman, an electric violinist who won multiple awards before setting up an advertising agency in the 1990s, said: “The house is only the physical part of the effort we are trying to bring in.

“Whatever we can do here, what the council will allow us to do, we will do it.

“Ian Curtis was so influential and he was much more than one address on this planet. The internet means we can do so much more.”

The idea of converting the house into a museum has come in for some criticism given Ian committed suicide there in May 1980.

The planned Joy Division museum

However Hadar dismissed the idea the museum would be anything other than a tribute to the work of the iconic band.

“I can guess why Macclesfield has not celebrated him so much, perhaps it is because of the way he died.

“But enough years have passed now, I think, and they are still amazingly popular.

“The super fans, such as the ones who want to buy this place, are young.

“I was 16 years old when I first got into them. They were the foundation, they were the Beethoven of modern music.

“Your home is where your energy and your spirit is and I think that’s why people want to come here.

“The idea is not to trespass on his private life but take that energy and his legacy and turn it into an inspirational tool.

“We are celebrating his life and work, his vitality and his music as opposed to anything else.”

WATCH: The Ian Curtis Museum

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Fellow musician and planning expert Jeff Shapiro, who is working with Hadar on the project, said it would take at least eight months to a year to get it off the ground.

“The first stage will be to get a blue plaque outside saying that he lived and died here, that’s very important,” he said.

“Then we will go through the planning process and we have already started discussions about that.

“We’re going to look at a design competition for the house, possibly involving both architects and students to see how this could be done in the best possible way.

“It’s too early to say exactly what that would look like.

“Of course within the house there would be photography, films, music and lots of things that connect the house to how it was when he lived here as well as important historical bits.

“But beyond that, online, we want this to be a platform for alternative music which can go beyond his memory and bring it into the 21st century.”

Asked if Ian himself would approve of that idea, he said: “Ian was 23 when he died and he was obviously a genius even at that age.

“At the same time, someone at 23 changes over time.

“Possibly Ian at 23 wouldn’t have liked the idea of what is being suggested. But very possibly the older Ian, if he had lived on, would have embraced it.

“It’s not just about his memory but being able to take it forward and say to people ‘you can carry on dreaming’ and I think he would have liked it.”